


All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe, And To Love You

by LittlePageAndBird



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Communication, Darillium (Doctor Who), F/M, I Love You, Marriage, Pregnancy, Relationship Study, Singing Towers of Darillium, They're so cute I just can't STAND IT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23204290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittlePageAndBird/pseuds/LittlePageAndBird
Summary: “You’ll know where they are,” River says, her words careful and deliberate. “If you ever want to visit. And they will know who you are, always. You’re welcome here, any time. Maybe every few weekends, if you like, when you’re not busy. Or every few months. Or on their birthday.” Her voice cracks, and for a fleeting moment she looks like she’s about to crumble altogether. She doesn’t, of course. She never does. “We’ll be here.”
Relationships: The Doctor/River Song, Twelfth Doctor/River Song
Comments: 18
Kudos: 121





	All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe, And To Love You

**Author's Note:**

> Because there's nothing better to do under quarantine than write domestic Darillium. Title from "The Air That I Breathe" by The Hollies. If you've read A Piece Of Magic - the plot overlaps, but this one is separate because I wanted to try something different. Enjoy - and stay safe!

He shows her around their new place like it’s a newly discovered universe, only better. After making their reservation on the balcony he’d gone a bit overboard, admittedly. He’d managed to talk the restaurant construction team into building the cottage they’re now standing in. He tells her all this because he’s so excited he can’t help but ramble as she wanders around their living-room - _their_ living-room! - taking it all in. 

“And then I pulled one of the builders aside, scribbled down a list of things I knew you’d like and coordinates on where to find them, so you might recognise some of the furniture. Just had enough time to stick some food in the fridge, then head back to make your Christmas present and change into a proper suit before you came to. So.” He clasps his hands together, grinning at her. He’s untouchable tonight, he’s feeling about a thousand years younger, he can’t _wait_ for her to kiss him for this. “What do you think?”

She’s standing apart from him, too far away, looking not at their new home but out of the window at the twilight and the Towers. When she turns to him there’s a smile on her face, but it’s the wrong one. Too sad.

“I can’t do this.”

The spark buzzing around his head short-circuits. He blinks, smarting, scrambling to read her. All through dinner she’d teased him with a laugh in her voice about his inability to sit still, rolling off predictions of the bizarre hobbies he’d take up here to entertain himself, wagering bets on how long he’d last before he went totally screaming insane by reason of domesticity. Now she’s looking at him like she finally believes him and like, somehow, that’s so much worse. 

“Oh.” He stings all over, like fingertips pressing on a bruise. 

“I’m sorry,” she offers desperately. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

“Oh?” Something else, he thinks blithely, something new about herself that she hasn’t shown him yet because she thinks he’ll mind. Given that he’s just followed her around the galaxy like a puppy as she tried to murder a husband he didn’t know she had and his reaction was to invite her to move in, he’s momentarily stumped as to why she looks so torn up.

 _No_. Her voice is in his head, all around it, the tingle of mental connection like water rushing in his ears. She grabs onto his thoughts and throws them aside, and he tries to keep his unfurling worry where she can’t see it because there are very few things she has ever communicated to him in this way, in this silent, sacred space that no-one else can enter.

Despite their ridiculous inability to say things out loud, despite their boundless, time-halting love manifesting far too often in fights and tears and distance, they have their moments of transcendence. As her mind reaches out and wraps around his the way only hers can, the way no human could ever hope to understand, a surge hits him like a punch to the stomach. There’s no language that possesses the words he could use to explain the feeling, the discovery of a faint hum at the frays of her mind that’s new and separate and unique, but suddenly he just _knows._ They are not alone here.

She withdraws completely before his thoughts can cling to her, and the moment passes. She says it out loud to make it real, to bring it out into the universe.

“I’m having a baby.”

The words suck the air out of the room. He wants to ask, because he doesn’t want to make the assumption he may have before today, but words have failed him. 

“Yours,” she offers, a whisper, because of course she always knows. He didn’t know that was the answer he was hoping for until the word spins him dizzy with relief.

“How…” He swallows. His throat feels like it’s full of tar. “How long?” 

“Four months. After Manhattan.”

The cacophony of memories roused by the word leaves him motionsick. In response to his eyes roaming over her, confused, she holds up the spray that she’s been using to change her clothes - the one he hasn’t even given a second thought to because it’s so terribly her. 

“Perception filter,” he realises hoarsely, his own voice sounding miles away. “Clever.”

It feels like the gravity in this house has increased fivefold. They stare each other down, agonised, the now funereal thrum of the Towers playing around them. He knows what she’s going to say before she says it, but each word still punctures him.

“Doctor, listen to me,” she says, slow. Her hand stretches out like she’s coaxing him down from a ledge. “I’ve got this. Understand? I stole the diamond so I could get the means to settle somewhere. Permanently. This is exactly what I wanted to do. Find a peaceful little planet, somewhere ordinary. Somewhere safe. Give it all up. All of it. For them. So they can have the childhood I never knew.” Her breath shakes as she draws it. “This is perfect. This night, this house. It’s ok.” Her hands curl into fists, and she nods between him and the door. “I can take it from here.” 

His whole insides are screaming and hot and shaking as with her every word he feels the promise of twenty-four year sliding out from under him. She doesn’t want him, the man who leaves, who disappoints, who’s lost every family he’s ever had. Who was the reason she was robbed of a childhood. He can’t blame her.

Wait.

_That’s why I crashed Hydroflax’s ship here._

“You were looking for me,” he manages, weak. “On the colony.”

“Of course I was. I was never going to hide this from you, Doctor. If you leave now and never look back, you still deserve to have that choice to make.”

 _Does not, and has never, loved me._ He feels like he’s dying. “River.”

“You’ll know where they are,” she says, her words careful and deliberate. “If you ever want to visit. And they will know who you are, always. You’re welcome here, any time. Maybe every few weekends, if you like, when you’re not busy. Or every few months. Or on their birthday.” Her voice cracks, and for a fleeting moment she looks like she’s about to crumble altogether. She doesn’t, of course. She never does. “We’ll be here.”

“No,” he whispers before he can stop himself, and watches her try to catch her face before it falls. His feet carry him drunkenly forwards, until he’s almost close enough to touch her. She watches his movements like he’s about to knock her to the ground.

“Can I see?” he asks.

She looks flustered that he’s going off-script, like she wants to rip the moment off like a plaster and be done with it, but after a moment of consideration holds up the perfume bottle all the same. With one spray the red dress disappears, the jewellery fades, her hair comes down. She’s in the outfit he used to discover her lounging around her Luna campus flat in, the one she’d open the door to and then groan that he hadn’t forewarned her about his visit so that she could have at least put on something more appealing. He doesn’t think he’s ever told her how lovely he finds it. It’s nothing special, navy cotton slacks and a beige shirt rolled at the sleeves that he’s fairly certain used to belong to him. The same shirt that is now being stretched ever so slightly by the swell of her stomach, the small bump that she cups protectively the moment it’s exposed.

The way she looks at him, like she’s so in love she can barely stand it, always leaves him aching. But it’s so much more now that he can see how feverishly tired she is, how she’s very nearly glowing, burning, with the regeneration energy swirling inside her as it helps her to grow this rare thing, this impossible thing, this wonderful, _wonderful_ thing. 

“River,” he says again, because her name contains multitudes to him. He’s certain that he’s nowhere near good enough to share this with her but he will let the entire universe go to hell, let it tear itself apart before he runs away from this.

His hands slide into her hair and he kisses her, so hard that she staggers backwards but doesn’t break away, and it’s probably too much but it’s just not _enough_.

Holding her face in his hands he pulls back, just enough to see her, just enough to speak. 

“I love you.” 

It’s like all the times he hasn’t said it when he should have have lain dormant, waiting, and now he can’t stop them. Doesn’t want to. Her stomach presses into him and it’s full of something that is hers and his and _theirs,_ a tangible knot in their timelines, a solid shared creation. A future. His mouth is so full of all the things he suddenly feels he must say, simply must or he’ll drop down and die, that he almost chokes on it. “I _love you_.”

Something inside him breaks, snaps off altogether and falls apart at the way her breath catches when he says it. Like it’s the answer to every question in the universe all at once. Her eyes are full of all the things they shouldn’t be and he kisses her like he’s trying for all he’s worth to draw them out, like poison from a wound, even when it leaves them both gasping for breath, even when sobs begin to shake her.

“I love you, I love you. I love you.” His declarations grow muffled as his mouth presses to her forehead, her cheeks, neck, shoulders, enough to leave no inch of exposed skin unkissed. Her hand cradles the back of his head and she holds him to her as he walks her backwards, hands slipping down her arms and around her waist. When he lifts her into his arms she clings to him like he’s her centre of gravity and doesn’t let go for hours.

* * *

She’s sleeping when he wakes up. Properly sleeping in their new bed, face half-pressed into the pillow and lips parted as soft snores pass between them. Blinking himself awake - he’s determined not to lose another second to sleep when he could be admiring her - he shifts onto his side. Her limbs are wrapped around him, ever possessive, and he keeps his movements delicate so as not to rouse her. His wife sleeping is a privilege he’s witnessed only a handful of times. 

An old song hums through his head. _Rest now, my warrior_. There is something raw and precious in being allowed to see her at her most unguarded like this. Right now, relaxed and tucked up, she almost looks small. He imagines telling her that and grins at the thunderous scowl he knows he’d get for it.

The covers are tucked around her shoulders so he entertains himself with her face, combing her curls back ever so gently and stroking an irresistible line down her nose with his little finger before settling back on his pillow, resigned to whittling away hours just looking at her. She’s been in his life longer than she hasn’t by now, and still he could drink in the sight of her until he’s intoxicated. 

She’d fallen asleep without saying a word to him last night, her head pillowed on his shoulder with her hand splayed across his chest. He’d forgotten what it was to know the peace of being held by her. The thought of some tiny dot of a person nestled between them in this very bed in a matter of months almost makes him sob out loud. 

He slips out from under the covers, gets dressed and heads into their kitchen to get started on breakfast. He whistles a tune under his breath as he empties the contents of the fridge into various pots and pans because she can be fussy and he’s not taking any chances.

Once it’s all almost ready he tiptoes back to the bedroom, head filled with ways he can wake her. He’s just about managed to narrow it down to two sweetly romantic options and one rather filthy option by the time he’s easing the door open but of course, because he’s him and she’s her and it’s them, that’s as far as he gets. 

She’s already halfway to waking, and her movements stop him where he stands. He watches her hand stretch lazily over to his side like an instinct, her fingers scrambling for the feel of him with increasing urgency until she jolts awake, head lifting from the pillow. 

It all happens devastatingly quickly. Her soft, pained gasp rips right through him and for a moment he is, stupidly, unable to make a sound as her hand curls around a fistful of empty sheet where he’s supposed to be. She bows her head, and when her nose brushes his pillow she inhales deeply, squeezing her eyes shut.

“River.”

His voice catches her in freefall. She sits up and finds him in the doorway, eyes blowing wide like she’s seen a ghost. He itches to go to her, kiss her until that awful forlorn look is a distant memory, but the shriek of the kitchen timer makes them both jump. 

A helpless grin wrinkles his nose. “Breakfast is ready.”

She joins him in the kitchen when she’s dressed, where there’s food waiting that could likely feed the entire restaurant. “Didn’t know what you’d fancy,” he shrugs, and she gives him those soft eyes as she takes a seat at the table, the face that he secretly calls _you’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot_. It’s one of his favourites.

“So,” he chirps when he joins her, reaching across the table to pour tea into her mug. “How do you fancy some sightseeing today?” She doesn’t respond either way, stabbing an egg yolk until it oozes. “I thought we could have a nosey around the local spots. There’s a beach not far from here, apparently. We could go for a walk.”

River looks up at him, her fork tapping out a rhythm on the side of her plate. She always makes music when she’s thinking. He tries, but he can’t read the look on her face. “Or not,” he hedges, like a question.

He watches her shoulders rise with a breath that she lets go, slowly, before she speaks. “No,” she says, and her gaze returns to her plate. She still hasn’t taken a bite. “A walk sounds lovely.”

* * *

The footpath leading from their cottage winds around the rocky hills until it thins out and disappears into a wood. Even in her somewhat subdued mood she can’t help bickering with him over directions, and he tries not to sulk when her shortcut through the trees gets them to the little cove far quicker than his way would have.

They sit on the sand, hip to hip, Darillium’s three moons bathing them and the ocean in silvery light. Some large horned creature flips through the water and birds pick at shells on the shore but other than that it’s only them. If they both died here no-one would ever find them, he thinks, tucked away from the noise of the universe. 

Thunder rumbles in the distance, though there’s a portal of clear sky above them. River is looking up and he watches her eyes dart between the stars as she traces shapes in the palm of her hand with her index finger.

Her eyes swivel and narrow, catching his smile. “What?”

“Any you recognise?”

He watches the flicker of surprise light up her face. He suspects she’d forgotten telling him in her younger days about her hobby of learning constellations, drawn to the myths behind the illustrations they made in the nothingness. She shakes her head, smiling wanly. “I haven’t spent much time in this part of the galaxy. I’ll have to look them up. Or invent them.”

Darillium’s sky is new to him, too, and it’s quite a sight to behold. The dark here isn’t black but inky purple, dyed by distant supernovae and nebulous clouds. Even to someone whose backyard is the universe, it’s objectively beautiful. “So many stars,” he breathes.

River half-smiles, eyes full of the night sky. “Not quite Calderon Beta.”

“Ah. No.” But he prefers it, he thinks to himself. Feels more intimate. The thought gently startles him, and he marvels quietly at her, at the way she makes him crave the taste of things he always thought bitter.

“We should have brought lunch,” River muses. He reaches into his jacket instantly and pulls out a packet of jelly babies, dropping them in her lap. She thanks him with a huff of laughter, rifling through the bag for the red ones and picking them all out before she offers it back to him. “I’ve been craving these for weeks.”

He outright grins - a true sign of his child in her if ever he heard one. River looks a little taken aback by her own admission, flipping a jelly baby over in her palm repeatedly. He wishes that she could tell him anything that bore any weight at all without resigning herself to the notion that it would repulse him before the words even left her mouth. His fault, of course. 

He eats his way through the rest of the jelly babies as he watches her. She looks like she’s thinking - she always does, unless he drives her to distraction. Even then he sometimes can’t calm that look down off her face, the one that gazes back at him like he’s already on his way out the door. He’d thought he’d just about managed it last night. He’d devoted hours to her, like a worshipper at a shrine, splayed her out beneath him and took his time relearning her with new hands, new mouth - seeing what felt the same, tasted the same, made his hearts stutter and his eyes roll back the same. He hadn’t been surprised to discover that the desire she stirs in him is, it seems, a permanent fixture that regeneration cannot shift. But she’s been so terribly quiet this morning. He manages to drive himself half-mad fixating on it before he finds the strength to ask.

“Was, uh... “ He clears his throat, combing his fingers through the sand. “Was last night - ok?”

“What?” The worry lines on her face first twitch with incredulity, then relax into amusement. “Do you mean the sex?” 

“Well.” He drags a hand through his hair. “It’s just that, uh - it’s been a while. A while is an understatement, actually. This body isn’t very... “ He gestures helplessly. “Inclined, towards that sort of thing, generally, and it hasn’t done anything like that before, so - I’m probably a bit rusty.”

“Doctor-”

“Not to say that I didn’t - enjoy it-”

“Doctor.” She says his name in a way that stops him altogether, though her voice is only patience. “It was amazing. Perfect. It always is.” She draws her bottom lip between her teeth, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards almost imperceptibly, and he wonders exactly which part of the previous evening she’s recalling. “Especially last night.”

A twist in his hearts unwinds, pleased that she appears to have felt it too. He struggles to call to mind ever feeling so whole and yet so utterly undone. The universe could have turned to dust around them last night and there’s not a chance he would have noticed.

“So you don’t mind the new body, then?” It’s supposed to tease the mood into taking a lighter form, but it can’t help coming out like the plea that it is.

“Why would I mind?” He grows preoccupied tracing the wrinkles on the back of his hand, ignoring her eyes on him even though they’re making his cheeks hot. “Because you no longer look like a twelve-year-old?” He sees her shake her head from the corner of his eye. “You know the face you wear doesn’t matter to me, Doctor. My love for you goes far beyond that. But believe me when I say a more mature body is no bad thing.”

Her voice drops on that last sentence, soothing and warm. It’s like a balm. He knows it well and he fights between the way it melts him and the pang of frustration that somehow, again, it’s become her comforting him.

He glances up at her, uncertain, and she gives him a tender smile. “You’re beautiful.”

He scoffs.

“I mean it.” She holds his gaze in a way that leaves him unable to look away, all the other shattering feelings making themselves known in her eyes seconds ago shoved aside, always, in favour of putting him at ease. She reaches a hand up, stroking her fingers through his hair, tracing his jawline with her thumb. Her eyes are wide and solemn as he blinks back at her, a sudden shyness making his pulses flutter. 

“Then what’s wrong?” he probes as gently as he can. He knows she hates talking feelings almost as much as he does, but there’s nothing for it now. They both need to drag their hearts from their hiding places and pin them to their sleeves. “You’ve barely said a word today. It’s not like you to be so quiet. Nearly always means I have something to worry about.”

Her fingers fall away from his cheek so abruptly that he rewinds the words in his head to work out what he’s said wrong. “You don’t have to worry about me, my love. I’ll be just fine. I promise.” She squeezes his hand briefly and then lets go, drawing a steadying breath like she’s about to jump into the raging sea. “You can go.”

“What?” 

“Don’t make me say it again,” she whispers as she breathes out, barely loud enough for him to catch her. She closes her eyes, head bowed. “You can go now.”

“River-”

“I can’t say goodbye to you,” she snaps, the sand sliding away from her as she draws her legs up to hug her knees to her chest. Her voice is soft and broken when it comes again. “Please, Doctor. If you care about me at all, you won’t make this harder than it needs to be. Just go.”

“Why do you think I’m going?”

She flinches at his voice, her brow furrowing like she couldn’t possibly comprehend him doing anything else. “Because you are.”

“No.” He slips a hand under her chin, his touch on her a second language to hammer home what he’s seemingly incapable of making known to her. “I was always staying. From the moment you told me. Always.”

His thumb sweeps across her cheek and he watches the bob of her throat as she swallows, considering it, entertaining it, hoping for it. “Oh,” she manages feebly. 

“That’s what I was telling you, last night. Or trying to.” He rubs a hand over his eyes, groaning to himself. “I really need to start saying these things out loud, don’t I?”

“You said plenty out loud,” she reminds him, her voice thawed out a little. She pries his hand away from his face gently, and her eyes fall shut as she drops a kiss to the centre of his palm. “Things you’ve never said - things I never expected to hear from you.” She drops their intertwined hands to her lap, toying with his fingers. “That’s why I thought - I thought that was you… saying goodbye.”

He smiles softly. “Still here, aren’t I?” 

The sky has closed up above them now, the air damp and heavy. His eyes follow her, the movement that plays across her face as she bites her lip and looks out across the water. He takes his chances on reaching out, his mind to hers, even though she nearly always pushes him back - a lifetime of hiding spoilers has left her little choice - and in her distractedness she lets him in, just for a moment. He feels the way she fought against drifting off in his arms last night, feels the electric shock of panic jolting her awake every time he’d shifted in his sleep. Feels the way her hearts had snapped when she’d woken to an empty bed.

“Then what did you think all the sightseeing was for?” he wonders aloud.

She sighs, embarrassed. “I thought you were just... trying to show me that I’d be ok here. That we’d be ok.” She pats the small swell of her stomach. “We would be, you know. I don’t need you. I love you. With everything I have. I always will. It’s like breathing to me.” He watches her deflate a little before she comes back to herself, firm and maddeningly stoic. “But I don’t need you.”

“I know. I’m not staying because I think you need me, River.” He smiles gently. “It’s me who needs you.”

She looks at him like he’s speaking an entirely new language that she’s scrambling to decipher; like she’s terrified that when she learns the words their meaning won’t be what she’d hoped. “Why?” she asks faintly.

With her, he’s more human than he ever thought he could be. She knows how to wind him up so tightly that he almost breaks with it. She’s attuned to his body - no matter the face, if last night is anything to go by - knows exactly where to kiss or lick or bite to reduce him to a trembling mess. She knows how to make him laugh, sometimes without saying a word. She’s keenly aware of the many, many things he’s done that would turn him into a monster in anyone else’s eyes but hers; she loves him still. And yet, somehow, in her eyes, he’s still some unreachable god.

He can understand it, he supposes. He’s aware that he alone holds the incredible, terrifying privilege of knowing River Song better than anyone has or will, and yet even now he only feels her growing more astounding, more sacred with each new thing he’s learning. He’s fairly sure that by sunrise he’ll be worshipping at her feet. And when she’d told him just yesterday that he was nobody special he’d believed it with ease, blinded by the sheer light of her.

It astonishes him that she can stand there and compare him to the stars with such conviction as if she’s not entire swirling galaxies by comparison. As if her magnitude, her power, her hold over the ancient legends of the universe, not only matches his but leaves him in the dust. As if he’s not little more than a shadow in her wake. 

“You said it yourself,” he tells her, twining his fingers through hers until their pulse points press together and harmonise. “It’s like breathing.”

She smiles ruefully. “For me. You breathe in the stars, the galaxies. All those planets, those wonders. This can never be your lifeblood.” She casts her gaze to the distant Towers, two silhouettes standing proud on the horizon. “One person, under one sky.”

Her hand drops to her stomach, and he watches her stroke it with her thumb like she’s giving it comfort. His hearts sink like stones. 

He must have told her outright about a hundred times last night, in every way he could think of, in ancient languages that held untranslatable words for that infinity of feeling. Every thought he could recall crossing his mind since the day he’d laid eyes on her, he’d offered up with abandon. You’re brilliant. You’re a diamond. You’re breathtaking. I want you. I’m in awe of you. I love you, I love you, I _love_ you. 

Of course it wasn’t enough. Of course one night couldn’t break down a solid two-hundred-year-old bedrock of not believing, a foundation that he’d laid down in her with his own hand. He’d lashed out at her love because he knew it would kill her, because he knew he wasn’t worth it, and she’d taken it to mean that her love for him made her lesser in his eyes. 

“It’s funny,” he muses. “I always thought you knew it all about me. Still do, for the most part,” he clarifies when her eyes dart to him sharply, always ready to argue. “You know me better than anyone. Certainly better than I’ve ever known myself. But you’ve got it so terribly wrong how I feel about you.” His voice falters but he picks it up, keeps going, because the words seem so much louder when they’re not buried in her skin, whispered in the dark, but bravery is the very least he owes her. “And you’ve got it wrong about falling in love. It’s not small, or ordinary. There is no greater wonder in all of time and space. Apart from, perhaps, this.” He rests his hand gently on her stomach and feels the muscles flex under his touch with the effort of not shying away from a gesture so intimate. 

She doesn’t say a word for a while and he lets the silence stretch as thunder whip-cracks above their heads, nudging his nose into her hair when she tucks her head on his shoulder. She smells like the sea. 

“I’m scared.”

An admission so quiet it’s almost lost to the wind, and he’s achingly aware of how much it means that she trusts him with a confession like that.

“Why?” he asks softly, his thumb tracing soothing circles in her belly. 

Her sigh shakes as it leaves her, and her voice, so brave until just now, is suddenly full of tears. “What if I can’t do it? What if I don’t know how?”

He forgets, sometimes, about Melody Pond. Her love for him is so warm and wonderful and abundant it often slips his mind that it’s an act of defiance. And then he’d kiss the top of her head as she tinkered with the Tardis or throw a blanket over her while she was marking exam papers and she’d look so affected, so completely stunned by it he’d remember that Melody had never been tucked into bed, or picked up when she fell down, or held close and told she was loved.

“As someone who has the privilege of being loved by you,” he murmurs into her hair. “As someone who knows first-hand how brave, and kind, and how fiercely protective you can be. There’s no-one I would rather bring someone new into the universe with.” 

When she lifts her head to brush his nose with hers, she feels a little lighter in his arms. Like she’s gathering up his words and tucking them away somewhere safe until she knows what to do with them all. “There’s no-one I would rather bring someone new into the universe with either, sweetie.”

A brilliant flash lights up her face before he can kiss her. They look out to catch a streak of lightning forking into the sea, and not a second later fat drops of rain start pattering on the sand. 

“Do you happen to have an umbrella in those pockets?” River asks, wincing as it comes down harder by the second.

“Uh.” He digs around, pulling out a yoyo, several guitar picks and a ball of wool before he gives up. “Nope.”

It’s only when she laughs that he realises how much he’s missed it. The rain is already pressing her curls flat and sticking his shirt to his skin. She’s properly giggling, head thrown back to the rain as he fusses over her, searching uselessly for something to cover them.

“You don’t even have a hood. Why don’t you have a hood? You’ll catch a cold, your immune system is compromised-!”

“Oh, shut _up_.”

She kisses him until his back is pressed to the sand, and he’s soaking wet and absolutely fucking freezing and his hearts have never been so full up.


End file.
